I wish I was more familiar with Spanish speech custom, and I don't deny that targeted anti-natalism probably occurs in places, but I don't understand how "we invite you" entails, "the three things we’d like you to do." Moreover, it's obvious from the format and context of both (an advert for paid services... at least in one case), that both imply a statement at least as strong as "things we’d like you to do." Maybe the English one is a little more passive aggressive.

It is incredibly bizarre, however, just how different the two fields are (like on the English one you're supposed to call for the information that is provided readily on the Spanish one). What's weirdest to me, however, (I don't really speak or read Spanish) is that the Spanish one seems to suggest the services are free, but the English ones apparently have a fee?

It seems rather weak as an example of targeted anti-natalism. Why couldn't the differences simply be from the cultures/languages they're targeted toward? Kaiser certainly has an interest in both groups continuing to get pregnant, since doing so gives them a constant supply of loyal customers (since people tend to be reluctant to change providers without some bad experiences, IME). For all appearances, they could have given the same instructions ('include points x, y, and z) to an english and spanish ad person separately, and this is the result.

To prove, or counter, the point, it might be worthwhile to examine a few more english & spanish ads where the translation wasn't simple (ie, wasn't just a word-for-word translation, with minor grammar changes).

Regarding Chuk's last paragraph: Indeed, the spanish version says the classes are free ("Las clases son gratuitas"), but the English one mentions the Lamaze series has a fee. I wonder if that, and the other differences, might be either from the spanish ad person (if that hypothesis is correct) being more organized or somesuch, from different expectations of what the two groups will know ahead of time or how they will act once they get the pamphlet (they might be assuming that the english speakers would be more likely to be proactive regarding the information, or more informed regarding the whats and whens of it), a cultural difference, or something else.

On another note: I wonder if these two ads were actually temporal twins - the first one includes the print edition notes (the small numbers up the right side), while the second one's was cropped out (the image cuts off the symbol following "Kaiser Permanente" at the bottom). I doubt that was intentional, but the numbers could help in placing it.

"We invite you" is usually understood as "We offer to you". It doesn't necessarily have a sense of obligation.

I think if there's any doubt, one should just look at the first paragraph. In English, the woman is congratulated and told Kaiser will be with her on her "journey." In Spanish she is not congratulated. Exclaiming "You are going to have a baby!" Is not the same as saying Congratulations, even in Spanish. And Kaiser does not offer to guide the Spanish-speaker through her pregnancy, doesn't try to convince her to take the classes by explaining what she will learn in them. It simply says Kaiser wants to "help" her. Guiding and helping are very different things.

Having done a little translation work myself, I'm very curious as to how the Spanish version came about. (Assuming the English was the original). The anti-natalism could be coming from a source different than Kaiser. What if no one at Kaiser could read the translation they paid for? What if this is the fault of the translator? Another irony is that usually Spanish takes more words to say the same thing in English. The Spanish version has left out or simply changed much of the English and ends up a lot more sparse and less emotional.

But really, why the details about tubal ligation on the Spansh version and not the English? It is really strange.

Even if it's "we offer to you," the English speakers are not given the same offer. The fact is that sterilization info is "offered" to Spanish-speakers but not English-speakers.

Yes, it's just below "Hospital Tour" in the first brochure. The Spanish one just combines four different classes and singles out the other two.

As a Puerto Rican, the testing ground for the Pill and a place where low-income women were routinely sterilized without fully understanding what was going on, I am well aware of targeted anti-natalism.

That being said, as a native Spanish speaker, I am not entirely sure this is an example of targeted anti-natalism. To be invited to attend a class is not to be told "we'd like you to do this."

It could be said there is evidence of bias in the translation, because the sterilization option seems to be given more prominence, but the hospital tour option is more prominently displayed too. Am I to take that as evidence that this hospital thinks Spanish-speaking women are dumber than English speakers? Maybe we are talking about a translator with very stereotypical views?

Many Spanish speakers are Catholic a group that generally opposes most forms of contraception. A tubal ligation is a way for a woman to choose to have no children without using frowned upon means like condoms, pills, IUDS or abortions.

One thing that I've noticed in working with translators is that often agencies will try much harder to make the Spanish version accessible to people with less education, while the English version just presumes that you know what's going on (and have a fairly high level of literacy). There are certainly some grounds for this belief in many communities (many medical translators working with first-generation immigrants from rural backgrounds have had the experience of translating for someone who's going to the doctor for the first time ever for prenatal visits), but at the same time, it can be a way that weird differences in treatment get encoded into the literature that mothers are given.

If the English pamphlet was written to accommodate English-speakers with lower levels of literacy, I can imagine many women complaining that they were being talked down to, even though it is in some ways commendable to make information more accessible for everyone. And yet it's common practice to make the Spanish-language version "simpler". At the same time, even in the small towns I've had experience in things like this were often focus-grouped to make sure that they were phrased appropriately. Again, not something that's necessarily done with the English pamphlet, and something that can result in substantial changes in phrasing.

I'm the one who gave Lisa the flyers, which I picked up at Kaiser in a pediatric treatment room while I was there during an appointment for my daughter. I don't know if they were produced at the same time, but they were the two things there in the office available on the topic. Clearly the two items are not just a basic translation from English to Spanish, assuming the primary text was the English one. The people designing and vetting these materials made choices about how to reorient text and information, and this didn't come about just because of 'simple' translation. These differences are of design, emphasis, and content -- including mention of Lamaze for English but not Spanish, and emphasis on sterilization for Spanish but not English -- from the first glance my basic reaction was "holy shit!". The bias is not as overt as it used to be in the past but even the range of choices offered in English (so many!) vs. Spanish is pretty interesting. Also striking is the lack of emphasis on breastfeeding support in the Spanish version. So the questions I had are: is this about what they think people do want ir what they should want? Is it about offering choices or shaping them? Is it about information of influence?

Could it just be that there are less classes offered for Spanish-speaking women because they have less Spanish-speaking instructors? And because there are fewer classes, they have more room to expand on what each class is? Note that the English pamphlet has a sterilization class as well...

It also seems to me to be extremely selective reading to claim that "we invite you to" is ordering anyone to do anything.

Just not feeling the outrage here.

I think there are way too many assumptions going on here. The pamphlets are different, but the differences are far too subtle to attribute to "targeted anti-natalism." It's much more likely that these are actually two different versions written by two different people or at two different times, rather than some kind of strategy to devalue Latina pregnancies. The Spanish flyer actually provides a lot more detailed information about the content of the classes, the month of pregnancy in which to register, etc. This could be seen as more helpful to Latinas, not less. (The longer descriptions of the classes could also be why the intro para in Spanish just says "You're going to have a baby!" rather than the long, rather information-less first para. in the English.)

As a professional translator, I like to assume, as George Mitchell does, that it's a good idea to attribute errors like these to incompetence rather than malice. It may well be that the translator was getting as close as he or she could to the tone of the original without giving undue offense.

I want to make another point as well. First of all, I know it is very difficult for some hospitals to offer Lamaze classes in Spanish, at times working people can take them. They may have staff available and competent for the OTHER health care services (such as dietary counseling), but not for Lamaze. Or the Lamaze may be available at SOME hospitals but not all.

I wouldn't dare try to speak to the subject of anti-natalism, because I have little to no experience in that area.

I do have a lot of experience in health-care marketing, though. One rule we have in our office is that we never just "translate" our materials, writing them one way and then handing them off to a Spanish-speaker to switch the words for us. Our Spanish-language materials are generally rewritten by a writer fluent in Spanish, using the original copy points or using the English version for copy points.

The idea is that most persuasive/marketing materials suffer from simple translation, and it's better to rewrite to maintain the rhythm and intent of the original piece and address any cultural differences that might affect the reader's interpretation of the copy.

I'm not saying that that's what happened here. But it could be that KP used separate writers and that the Spanish-language writer just did a lousy job of writing the material for his/her audience.

Somehow the excuse of "no instructor speaking Spanish" seems a bit weak in LA. Would the Lamaze brand be recognizable by a Spanish-only speaker, or would it be called by some other descriptive term? Have all 6 classes been offered in Spanish, and only a few filled? Has there been some "focus group" of community users viewing a few versions of the pamphlet? Also, the serie de information prenatal paragraph lists 4 classes - are these the four listed separately in the English version?

It could be said there is evidence of bias in the translation, because the sterilization option seems to be given more prominence

But isn't the fact that the sterilization option is made more prominent a specific example of anti-natalism? I'm honestly confused as to how someone could say that there were no aspects of anti-natalism in a pamphlet which promoted sterilization more heavily to the Spanish-speaking readers than to the English-speaking readers. That seems pretty blatant to me.

A tubal ligation is a way for a woman to choose to have no children without using frowned upon means like condoms, pills, IUDS or abortions.

Tubal ligation for the purposes of sterilization is also frowned upon by the Catholic church.

The contrast is appalling but don't read too much into the translation comparison. I'm a native speaker and "Invitación" simply sounds like the best way to indicate that the classes are for free. The English pamphlet indicates one is for a fee (it makes you assume the others are not), the Spanish pamphlet invites you to them. Just like you invite a friend for dinner. In its use as "I would like you to do", "invitar" is even milder than "sugerir".

Stacia, compared to the example below, outrage over this pamphlet is a little blown out of proportion, in my opinion:

Instead of providing women with access to alternative forms of safe, legal and reversible contraception, U.S. policy promoted the use of permanent sterilization. Institutionalized encouragement of sterilization through the use of “door-to-door” visits by health workers, financial subsidy of the operation, and industrial employer favoritism toward sterilized women pushed women towards having “la operacion.” These coercive strategies denied women access to informed consent. More than one-third of the women in the 1968 study didn’t know that sterilization through tubal ligation was a permanent form of contraception. The euphemism “tying the tubes” made women think the procedure was easily reversible.

http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/companion.asp?id=32&compID=55

I don't see the big deal. It looks like they offer fewer classes in Spanish. As a result of having fewer things to list, they had more room to be descriptive. I am not from Mexico or South America- does anyone know if the term tubal ligation is well know? Maybe it wouldn't be as understandable without a description?

Greetings everyone: The initial posting on this topic is incorrect. Any suggestion that there was an intention to coerce Spanish-speaking women to take a tubal sterilization class is patently not true.

As bloggers Elena, Jaya, and Nora Ann have pointed out - This class is listed on both the English and Spanish flyers. And whether we say in English "Our classes include," or in Spanish "le invitamos a las siguientes clases (we invite you to the following classes)," our goal is to provide information for a "Healthy Pregnancy & Baby Care," or "Un embarazo saludable y cuidado del bebé."

Also, please note that the hospital tour and free English and Spanish-language classes cover the same curriculum, including childbirth preparation (parto) and breast-feeding (lactancia materna). There has been no interest from Spanish-dominant parents for Lamaze classes, but if this changes, we would be happy to add this to our schedule of offerings.

Providing health care to our members in the language they prefer and in a manner that is respectful and culturally responsive is a core value for Kaiser Permanente. That is why your input and that of the communities we serve is so very important to us.

Socorro Serrano

LMAO!

so, KAISER PERMANENTE, a catholic insurance corporation (that wont allow a 7 week US termination -- they do a min. mandatory 8 week due 2 religious affiliation, per their own insurance co.), actually posted sterilization on their front ad? and then broadcast it 2 a spanish community, too?!

intriguing...

To Say what: Kaiser Permanente is not a catholic insurance corporation...

You don't know Spanish very well, do you?

It's not the "we invite you" language that gets me as much as "Take this class by your 5th or 6th month." That to me has the ring of something you're expected to do if it's not prefaced by anything like "If you're interested in this option."

@ say what

"that wont allow a 7 week US termination — they do a min. mandatory 8 week due 2 religious affiliation"

Ummm....you are aware that most clinics want you to be that far along, too, because with earlier abortions it is harder to be sure you have gotten everything out? I've worked at two grassroots feminist women's health centers - clearly no religious influences there - and that was their policy.